Posts Tagged ‘bridges’

I pointed this out a coupld of weeks ago: when Obama said, “We’ve got more than a million unemployed construction workers ready to get dirty right now,” how exactly was that not the same damn thing as saying “We’ve got all kinds of shovel-ready projects”???

This is the exact same pork-laden boondoggle that massively failed three years ago. Obama is even using the exact same arguments to try to sell it. The only difference is he’s expressing the exact same arguments with different soundbites.

Washington, D.C.- U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday regarding the President’s visit to Ohio and the bipartisan opposition to his stimulus and tax hike proposals:

“Over the past week, President Obama has been traveling around the country trying to set a record for the number of times he can say the words ‘pass this bill right away’ in a single five-minute speech.

“And today, he’ll bring his act to a 50-year-old bridge that connects my own state of Kentucky with Ohio.

“Now, the purpose of this visit is clear: The President’s plan is to go out to this bridge and say that if only lawmakers in Washington would pass his second stimulus bill ‘right away’, then bridges like this one would get fixed — and that the only thing standing in the way of repairing them is people like me.

“Well, I would just make a couple of points about all this.

“First, I find it hard to take the President’s message all that seriously when his own Communications Director is over at the White House telling people he’s no longer interested in legislative compromise; and when the leaders of the President’s own party in Congress are treating this bill like an afterthought.

“We’d be more inclined to look at this so-called jobs bill if the President’s own staff and the members of his own party in Congress started taking it a little more seriously themselves.

“Second, I’d remind the President that the people of Kentucky and Ohio have heard this kind of thing before. Don’t forget: the President made the same promises when he was selling his first stimulus. It’s a message he brought to Ohio repeatedly.

“Here’s what he said two years ago this week at a stop in Warren, Ohio: ‘All across Ohio and all across the country, rebuilding our roads and our bridges … that’s what the Recovery Act has been all about.’

“Yet two and a half years later, what do we have to show for it: politically-connected companies like Solyndra ended up with hundreds of millions in taxpayer-backed money, and bridges like the one the President’s at today still need to be fixed.

“It’s worth noting, in fact, that this one company blew through more taxpayer money than the first stimulus allocated for every road and bridge in the entire state of Kentucky — combined.

“The President told Ohioans and Kentuckians the first stimulus would keep unemployment below 8% too.

“Yet two and a half years later, unemployment in both states is still above 9 percent.

“So we’ve heard these promises before, and I don’t think the President should expect anybody to fall for them again.

“I mean, how many stimulus bills do we have to pass before these bridges get fixed?

“How many Solyndras do we have to finance?

“How much money do we have to waste before the President makes good on the promises he’s already made?

“If a bridge needs fixing, by all means, let’s fix it.

“But don’t tell us we need to pass a half a trillion dollar stimulus bill and accept job-killing tax hikes to do it.

“Don’t tell the people of Kentucky they need to finance every turtle tunnel and solar panel company on some bureaucrat’s wish list in order to get their bridges fixed.

“And don’t patronize us by implying that if we just pass this second stimulus, that bridges will be fixed ‘right away.’

“The American people heard the same thing when the administration was selling the first stimulus, only to turn on their television sets two and a half years later to see the President having a big laugh over the fact that all those shovel-ready projects weren’t quite as shovel-ready as he thought they were.

“So I would suggest, Mr. President, that you think about ways to actually help the people of Kentucky and Ohio, instead of how you can use their roads and bridges as a backdrop for making a political point.

“If you’re truly interested in helping our state — if you really want to help our state — then come back to Washington and work with Republicans on legislation that will actually do something to revive our economy and create jobs. And forget the political theater.”

Amazingly, rather than work with Republicans to come up with a solution that could actually pass, Barack Obama NEVER ONCE picked up a phone and tried to talk to Republicans AT ANY TIME prior to his so-called “Jobs Speech.” He is a naked demagogue, and it is long-past time the American people realized that he is utterly naked of ideas that will do anything other than seek to get himself re-elected.

I copied the “100 projects” into a Word file and then conducted a search with the word “employees.” Here were the results of EVERY single occurrence:

9) A company in Maine “that had been struggling to pay its 19 employees” now being “back to work” thanks to a $2 million stimulus handout.

14) A New York construction company was able to rehire laid-off seasonal employees. Slate Hill had previously laid off 40 seasonal employees, possibly at the END OF THE SEASON. There is no mention of how many seasonal employees (meaning these are not full time jobs) were rehired, but the cost was over $7 million of your dollars in stimulus contract money.

15) The president of New Hampshire paving company Continental Paving ESTIMATEShe would have had to lay off 75 employees if it weren’t for the Recovery Act (I “estimate” he may be a liberal). In any event, however many of those 75 jobs were actually “saved” come at the cost of $10 million in stimulus money.

29) EnergX, a Department of Energy contractor, has 87 new employees on the job. We’re told that that these jobs “are supported by Recovery Act funding” – whatever that means. No mention of how much government money they are getting.

51) An auto-repair business owner received $463,500 in stimulus funds which we’re told are “strengthening his short-term cash flow and putting him and his 10 employees in position to increase sales as the economy turns around.” Note that no mention is made of any new employees hired.

58) A start-up tire-recycling plant owner had borrowing fees of $45,750 for a $1.715 million equipment loan paid by stimulus funds. The owner “hopes to have 34 employees onboard by New Year’s Day next year.” Clearly, IF the owner is able to hire 34 employees, it will NOT be due to the pissant borrowing fees for the near $2 million in private bank loans.

75) Four hundred employees hired using Recovery Act funding reported for work at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State. Now we’re getting somewhere! 400 plus a few employees from the other 74 programs, at a cost of ONLY $3.27 TRILLION!!! We’re not told how much these employees cost taxpayers, but we ARE told that most of the employees will be UNION.

83) A company selling and installing energy-saving window films for commercial buildings, saved $6,970 in fees on its SBA 504 loan when it bought a new space five times larger than its previous home. We’re told “the savings will help owners John and Kimberly Henderson add three employees to their staff of 12.” If you know any business owner who has ever hired full-time employees, ask him or her how much $7 grand in saved fee-money would go toward such a hiring decision. And THINK ABOUT IT: $3.27 TRILLION DOLLARS, AND OBAMA IS POINTING AT “HELPING” HIRE 3 EMPLOYEES IN ITS LIST OF HIS TOP 100 ACHIEVEMENTS!!!

And that’s IT. That’s ALL THE JOBS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO ACCOUNT FOR. And most of the list of EIGHT businesses really aren’t able to hire employees based on anything Obama did with his – did I mention? – $3.27 TRILLION in porkulus.

Think about it: this is Obama’s own “Look what we’ve accomplished!” list. This is all the man has to show for the largest spending bill in the history of human civilization! How would Mister Rogers put it: “Can you say, “pathetic”? I think you can!”

A Republican senator’s office says stimulus funds are going toward dubious projects, such as a $3.4-million tunnel for turtles. Obama aides say the report is flawed.

By Peter Nicholas, June 15, 2009

Reporting from Washington — A report due to be released today by a Republican senator contends the Obama administration’s stimulus program is fraught with waste and incompetence — evidenced by a turtle crossing in northern Florida that will cost more than $3 million and a snafu in which thousands of Social Security checks went out to people who had died.

Modeled after a release from the White House describing 100 stimulus projects that were in the works, the report put out by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma looks at the same number of projects but reaches starkly different conclusions. The title is “A Second Opinion on the Stimulus.”

“Will these projects make real improvements in the lives of taxpayers and communities or are they simply pet projects of politicians and lobbyists that never got off the ground because they are a low priority?” the report says.

Millions of dollars are going toward bicycle lockers, bike paths, walking trails and a skate park, Coburn said. One town in North Carolina is using stimulus funds to hire an administrator whose job will be to procure more stimulus funds, according to the report. […]

A theme of Coburn’s work is that money is going toward dubious projects that will leave little imprint. One project mentioned is the $3.4-million construction of a 13-foot tunnel near Tallahassee, Fla., that will allow turtles and other wildlife to safely cross U.S. Highway 27.

The report said the area “has the highest road-kill mortality rate for turtles in the world.” But it also suggests other uses for the money, and mentions Florida State University’s plans to lay off 200 faculty and staff members in hopes of saving millions of dollars.

Officials at the Florida Department of Transportation defended the project as one that not only would save turtles but also protect motorists. “A lot of these turtles are quite large. They get hit by a car, and they turn into flying objects,” said Josh Boan, the department’s natural resources manager.

Construction on the tunnel is to begin in September. State officials could not estimate how many jobs would be created.

Raising questions about the government’s ability to manage the stimulus money, Coburn’s report also focuses on more than 8,000 Social Security checks that have been mailed to people who are dead.

A spokesman for the Social Security system said the checks were mailed based on erroneous records. In most cases, the Postal Service returns the checks directly to the government.

One $250 check went to the home of Antonietta Santopadre, a 74-year-old retired hairdresser living in New York. The check was made out to her father, who died 35 years ago. In an interview Monday, Santopadre said: “I was infuriated. Where’s our money going? Our country is in such trouble right now.”

The Coburn report entitled “A Second Opinion on the Stimulus” is now available. Some of the section titles:

– $800,000 for little-used Johnstown, Pennsylvania airport to repave a back-up runway; the “Airport for Nobody” Has Already Received Tens of Millions in Taxpayer dollars [note: that’s in pork-king and king-scumbag Jack Murtha’s district].

– $3.4 Million for Wildlife “Eco-Passage” in Florida; Project Still May Take Years to Finish [note: that’s the one about the turtles while 200 nearby employees are being laid off].

– Nevada Non-Profit Gets Weatherization Contract After Being Fired For Same Work.

– Non-Existent Oklahoma Lake in Line for Over $1 Million To Construct a New Guardrail.

– Taxpayers Taken for a Ride: Nearly $10 Million to be Spent to Renovate a Century Old Train Station that Hasn’t Been Used in 30 Years.

In the course of his investigation, Walpin found [Sacramento Mayor and personal friend of Barack Obama Kevin] Johnson and St. HOPE had failed to use the federal money they received for the purposes specified in the grant and had also used federally-funded AmeriCorps staff for, among other things, “driving [Johnson] to personal appointments, washing his car, and running personal errands.”

I don’t know ’bout you, but I’m hoping to get me a job shinin’ Massah Bureaucrat’s shoes some day.

What will be the result of all this insane spending, and not very far off? A quote from a CNS News story should awaken anyone who thinks the future will be rosy:

By 2019, the CBO said, a whopping 82 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) will go to pay down the national debt. This means that in future years, the government could owe its creditors more than the goods and services that the entire economy can produce.

All that staggering hyperinflation-creating debt, and about the only jobs that are being created by it are washing cars and running errands for politically-connected Democrats.